“DREAMSCAPE” for blendnewyork Boutique – an Inferno Concepts Production.
Written and Directed by Thomas DeJosia.
Starring Christine Abbate
Music by Cazadores.

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Lillian Bassman, a magazine art director and fashion photographer who achieved renown in the 1940s and ’50s with high-contrast, dreamy portraits of sylphlike models, then re-emerged in the ’90s as a fine art photographer after a cache of lost negatives resurfaced, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94. Her son, Eric Himmel, confirmed the death.

Ms. Bassman entered the world of magazine editing and fashion photography as a protégé of Alexey Brodovitch, the renowned art director of Harper’s Bazaar. In late 1945, when the magazine generated a spinoff called Junior Bazaar, aimed at teenage girls, she was asked to be its art director, a title she shared with Mr. Brodovitch, at his insistence.

In addition to providing innovative graphic design, Ms. Bassman gave prominent display to future photographic stars like Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and Louis Faurer, whose work whetted her appetite to become a photographer herself.

Already, at Harper’s Bazaar, she had begun frequenting the darkroom on her lunch hours to develop images by the great fashion photographer George Hoyningen-Huene, using tissues and gauzes to bring selected areas of a picture into focus and applying bleach to manipulate tone.

“I was interested in developing a method of printing on my own, even before I took photographs,” Ms. Bassman told B&W magazine in 1994. “I wanted everything soft edges and cropped.” She was interested, she said, in “creating a new kind of vision aside from what the camera saw.”

When Avedon went off to photograph fashion collections in Paris in 1947, he lent her his studio and an assistant. She continued her self-education and in short order landed an important account with a lingerie company. In its last issue, in May 1948, Junior Bazaar ran a seven-page portfolio of wedding photographs she had taken, titled “Happily Ever After.”

Ms. Bassman became highly sought after for her expressive portraits of slender, long-necked models advertising lingerie, cosmetics and fabrics. Her lingerie work in particular brought lightness and glamour to an arena previously known for heavy, middle-aged women posing in industrial-strength corsets.

“I had a terrific commercial life,” Ms. Bassman told The New York Times in 1997. “I did everything that could be photographed: children, food, liquor, cigarettes, lingerie, beauty products.”

Lillian Violet Bassman was born on June 15, 1917, in Brooklyn and grew up in the Bronx. Her parents, Jewish émigrés from Russia, allowed her a bohemian style of life, even letting her move in, at 15, with the man she would later marry, the documentary photographer Paul Himmel.

Ms. Bassman studied fabric design at Textile High School, a vocational school in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. After modeling for artists employed by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project and working as a muralist’s assistant, she took a night course in fashion illustration at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

She soon showed her work to Brodovitch, who was impressed. Waiving tuition, he accepted her into his Design Laboratory at the New School for Social Research, where she changed her emphasis from fashion illustration to graphic design.

Brodovitch took her on as his unpaid apprentice at Harper’s Bazaar in 1941, but desperate to earn money she left to become an assistant to the art director at Elizabeth Arden, whereupon Brodovitch anointed her his first paid assistant. Like her mentor, she was artistically daring. At Junior Bazaar, she experimented with abandon, treating fashion in a bold, graphic style and floating images in space.

“One week we decided that we were going to do all green vegetables, so we had the designers make all green clothing, green lipstick, green hair, green everything,” she told Print magazine in 2006.

Her nonadvertising work appeared frequently in Harper’s Bazaar, and she developed close relationships with a long list of the era’s top models, including Barbara Mullen (her muse), Dovima and Suzy Parker.

The stylistic changes of the 1960s, however, left her cold. The models, too. “I got sick of them,” she told The Times in 2009. “They were becoming superstars. They were not my kind of models. They were dictating rather than taking direction.”

In 1969, disappointed with the photographic profession and her prospects, she destroyed most of her commercial negatives. She put more than 100 editorial negatives in trash bags, putting them aside in her converted carriage house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She soon forgot all about them.

By the mid-1970s, she was out of the fashion world entirely and had begun focusing on her own work, taking large-format Cibachrome photographs of glistening fruits, vegetables and flowers, pictures of cracks in the city streets and distorted male torsos based on photographs in bodybuilding magazines.

It was not until the early 1990s that Martin Harrison, a fashion curator and historian who was staying at her house, found the long-forgotten negatives. He encouraged her to revisit them.

Ms. Bassman took a fresh look at the earlier work. She began reprinting the negatives, applying some of the bleaching techniques and other toning agents with which she had first experimented in the 1940s, creating more abstract, mysterious prints.

“In looking at them I got a little intrigued, and I took them into the darkroom, and I started to do my own thing on them,” she told The Times. “I was able to make my own choices, other than what Brodovitch or the editors had made.”

Her reinterpretations, as she called them, found a new generation of admirers. A full-fledged revival of her career ensued, with gallery shows and international exhibitions, including a joint retrospective at the Deichtorhallen museum in Hamburg with her husband and a series of monographs devoted to her photography.

A one-woman show at the Hamiltons Gallery in London, organized by Mr. Harrison in 1993, was followed by exhibitions at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris and an assignment from The New York Times Magazine to cover the haute couture collections in Paris in 1996. She completed her last fashion assignment for German Vogue in 2004.

Mr. Himmel died in 2009, having abandoned photography in his late 50s to become a psychiatric caregiver in the city’s hospitals and later a psychotherapist in private practice. Besides her son, the editor in chief of Abrams Books, she is survived by a daughter, Liza Himmel, known as Lizzie; two grandchildren; and a step-grandchild.

Ms. Bassman’s work has been published in “Lillian Bassman” (1997) and “Lillian Bassman: Women” (2009). A new book, “Lillian Bassman: Lingerie,” is to be published by on April 1.

(see original article here)

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When you deny the reality of life, you appreciate it less. Meditate on the Buddha’s Five Remembrances and rediscover the magic of life just as it is.

Ignorance, or avidya, is a root cause of suffering, according to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra (II.5). But the ignorance Patanjali refers to is less a lack of knowledge than an almost willful ignoring of reality. Today we call it denial. For instance, we may intellectually know that all things change, yet we desperately deny this truth—a denial that leads to anxiety, fear, and confusion.

At a recent lecture, I led a group of interfaith seminarians in the contemplation of the Five Remembrances, Buddha’s teaching on impermanence, aging, health, change, and death. Afterward, one of the students asked, “Isn’t this just negative thinking?” On the contrary, the Five Remembrances is what the Buddha offers to awaken you from denial, to cultivate gratitude and appreciation for the life you’ve been given, and to teach you about nonattachment and equanimity.

If you think of it this way, the meditation is not a bleak, depressing list of things you’ll lose, but a reminder of the wonder and miracle of life as it is —perfect and whole, lacking nothing. When you accept impermanence as more than a philosophical concept, you can see the truth of it as it manifests itself in your mind, your body, your environment, and your relationships, and you no longer take anything for granted.

Once you accept the reality of impermanence, you begin to realize that grasping and clinging are suffering, as well as the causes of suffering, and with that realization you can let go and celebrate life. The problem is not that things change, but that you try to live as if they don’t.

FREE YOUR MIND

To work with the Five Remembrances (see end of article), it helps to memorize and repeat them daily. Say them slowly and let the words seep in, without analyzing or interpreting them or your experience. Just notice your reactions. Let them rest until they shift and pass away—as all things do, being impermanent. Stay with your breath and observe the sensations under all your thinking. You may experience huge relief as the energy you’ve spent denying and hiding from the truth is liberated to move freely through your body.

Some remembrances are easier to accept than others. For me, it’s easier to consider that I’m growing older and will die, than it is that I have the potential for ill health. I have a strong constitution and am rarely ill; I always believed that if my practice were “good” enough, I wouldn’t get sick. So, on those rare days when I was ill, I often reproached myself for being sick and was a pretty cranky person to be around. But with the help of the Second Remembrance, I’m more accepting of illness and can now feel a profound sense of ease and even gratitude (for my usual good health) beneath it.

Another way of practicing the Five Remembrances is through something Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh calls hugging meditation. When your partner or children leave for work or school, hug each other for three full breaths, and remind yourself of the Fourth Remembrance: “All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.” If you’re having a disagreement with someone, remind yourself, before getting swept away by heated emotions, of the Fifth Remembrance: “My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.” None of this means you should be passive or reluctant to advocate your views. Instead the meditation helps you respond more skillfully with awareness of how things truly are rather than from conditioned reactions.

You can also get used to the concept of impermanence by listing things that have changed in your life over the past month or two. Perhaps a difficult posture has become easier, or an easy posture is now challenging. Perhaps a problem with a family member has resolved or grown more complicated. You’ll be hard-pressed to find something that hasn’t changed!

STEP INTO THE PRESENT

Again, facing the truth of impermanence shouldn’t depress you; it should free you to be fully present. It should help you realize that the freedom and inner peace you seek are already here. When you really see that all things change, your grasping and clinging fade under the bright light of awareness, like the stains in a white cloth bleached by the sun.

If nonattachment sounds cold and unappealing, you may be mistaking it for indifference. It’s the experience of attachment, based on the denial of ceaseless change, that is lifeless. Life without change is a contradiction in terms. When you’re attached to something, you want it to stay the same forever. This attempt to “freeze-dry” elements of your life squeezes the vitality out of them. The practice of nonattachment allows you to enjoy life wholeheartedly in its very passing.

Through your attachments you create mental manacles that bind you to the limited view that life is your life, your body, your lover, your family, your possessions. As your insight into impermanence deepens you start to see the truth of the “no-separate-self.” When you can extend beyond the limits you’ve created you see that your life is not really “yours” but all of life itself manifesting through you.

As the Buddha tells us: “When one perceives impermanence, the perception of no-self is established. With the perception of no-self, the conceit of ‘I’ is eliminated, and this is nirvana here and now.”

The Five Remembrances

I like this version of the Buddha’s Five Remembrances, offered by Thich Nhat Hanh in The Plum Village Chanting Book (Parallax Press, 1991).

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

(by Frank Jude Boccio. He is the author of Mindfulness Yoga. He teaches yoga in New Paltz, New York, and leads Mindfulness Yoga sessions throughout North America. view original source here.)

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You saying to me, “I do not understand you” is praise beyond my worth,
and an insult you do not deserve.

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If you don’t have a golden ticket to sit with the insiders at New York Fashion Week, fortunately you can now watch live streaming shows thanks to the growing number of individual designers and fashion sites that have been offering web users a front-row seat.

For the first time, the organizers of Fashion Week are streaming more than 30 Lincoln Center shows — including those of Diane Von Furstenberg, Narciso Rodriguez and Carolina Herrera — on one website at YouTube.com/liverunway, in a partnership with YouTube and Maybelline New York. Also for the first time, the shows will be streamed live on your smartphone at m.youtube.com/liverunway.

“Fashion has become much more democratic in the last decade and certainly in the last five years,” said Judy Licht, creator of the television program “Full Frontal Fashion,” which once again plans to stream more than two dozen shows live during New York Fashion Week, including Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.

The live stream provides exciting real-time access to an insider experience that’s normally restricted to buyers, editors, and fashion insiders.

Check it out!

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• Front to back post, brass chain earrings with a connecting ear cuff and Swarovski crystals.
• 4″ long
• Designed and handcrafted by Vanessa Quijano.
• SHOP VANESSA QUIJANO DESIGNER JEWELRY

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Imagine working for one of the most successful beauty companies in the world and imagine choosing to give it all up at the height of the financial crisis. A risky move, one that handbag designer Dareen Hakim says it was all worth it. The Dareen Hakim Collection is only over a year old, and at least half of her debut bags have already appeared on almost every shopping gift guide editorial since last spring.

I recently met Dareen at a charity event and was so inspired, not just by her beautiful and unique clutches (I’m a proud owner of her Le Capri clutch) but also her courage to leave the stability she’s known for almost ten years in the corporate world to pursue her passion for fine Italian leather and authentic Arabian metal. She molded those two things into the one thing we women don’t want to live without… our handbag. (by Nour Akkad from The Huffington Post)

Below are a few designs available in our boutique currently:

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In December 2011, a church made of snow and ice opened in Mitterfirmiansreut, a town in southeastern Germany about 100 miles northeast of Munich, marking the 100th anniversary of an act of protest. A century ago, Mitterfirmiansreut residents demanded a church in their town. When they were denied, they built their own out of snow and ice.

A crowd forms outside the ice church shortly after its opening.

Visitors tour the inside of the church.

The icy house of worship is 65 feet long and made of 49,000 cubic feet of snow and ice.

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The track is reminiscent of an earlier Pretty Lights style, a classic soulful hip-hop style. The music video was created by Derek Vincent Smith (Pretty Lights) and his girlfriend Krystle Blackburn (PLM’s creative Director). While the two of them traveled together all over the world during 2011, they filmed as much as their schedule allowed. Locations included in the video include Detroit, Warsaw, Oslo, NYC, Vancouver, London, Paris, Prague, Australia, New Zealand, Denver and many more.

The aim with the video was to accomplish multiple things:

1. Create a visual accompaniment for the music that added depth and complexity to the emotions being channeled by the music and lyrics… Rather than tell a story, communicate a range of feelings and open ended ideas.
2. Create a piece of art that speaks to the name “Pretty Lights.” The name was originally intended to capture the essence of inspiration and speak to the nature of the artistic eye, so this video combines captivating imagery with beautiful lights in an organic and creative manner.
3. To accomplish the first two things in a way that captures the attention of the viewer and does not let go. The element of precise synchronicity combined with quickly and creatively edited shots brings the video and music together in a way that unites the two like never before. It truly is one piece of art.

The track was produced by Pretty Lights and was released as a single on Jan. 26th 2012.

“Times will get bad, and the whole wide world, will come down on you…. You must go on.”

“I wish that I could tell you how I feel. It’s so real, it’s so real.”

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Set in style, these red tear-shape earrings embody passion and fire, a dangerous combination! Materials: Simulated Stones. Length: 3.3″ Width: 1.25″

SHOP ROSENA SAMMI JEWELRY

Rosena Sammi jewelry is a global-chic, yet attainable luxury brand defined by glamorous Indian design elements melded into a modern aesthetic that embodies the passion and spirit of its founder, Rosena Sammi. Seeking but never finding jewelry that possessed the perfect balance of being historically opulent and yet modern and wearable, Rosena decided to design her own. Rosena Sammi jewelry was launched in January 2006 as a line of exclusive, global-chic pieces epitomizing true Indian artisanship combined with head-turning modern style. Born and raised in New Zealand, of Sri Lankan heritage and based in Manhattan for the last decade, Rosena, a lawyer turned jewelry designer, is as worldly as the designs she creates. Named a “designer to know” by Harper’s Bazaar, Rosena and her jewelry have graced the pages of Vogue, Town & Country, Marie Claire, Lucky, InStyle and more. Celebrity fans of her jewelry include Rihanna, Jessica Simpson, Blake Lively, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Alba, Naomi Watts and Hilary Duff.

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peaceloveyoga currently teaches ongoing Mysore classes at Yogayama in Stockholm, Sweden.

Hello! My name is Laruga. I have a passion for yoga. Above all, I guess you can say, I’m a truth seeker. Always have been. Precocious as a child, I have nourished my curiosity into adulthood. A constant gnawing from the inside, I’ve always known there was more to life than meets the eye.

I’ve been a practitioner of yoga for over 16 years, including 13 years of daily Ashtanga yoga practice, in the tradition of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. I’m an Authorized Level 2 Teacher in the lineage and truly enjoy nurturing a space for students to grow and explore this dynamic practice. I can’t say it enough how blessed I feel to have the practice be part of my daily existence. To arrive on my mat regularly, essentially starting over from the beginning, one breath at a time, allowing each cell of my body become fully alive, and hopefully my innate wisdom awakened, has given more than words can say.

In addition, I’m a Reiki Master, a field that is of profound fascination to me in regards to the power of healing.

Thank you for being on this journey with me! Through this blog I hope to share with you some of my thoughts and insights along the way. Please, be in touch.

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Analili

Poets Turtleneck

• Beautiful long sleeve knit blouse with turtleneck.
• 95% Rayon / 5% Spandex
• MADE IN THE USA – Designed in Miami, Florida
• SHOP ANALILI DESIGNER FASHION

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